


The Planes

by Saziikins



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2556581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saziikins/pseuds/Saziikins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aeroplane flew over the red-brick house in Hanbury Street with the blue door and silver knocker. The unexpected sound caused one man to look up from his newspaper for the first time in an hour. The other man frowned and turned up the volume on the wireless.</p><p>World War Two AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Planes

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Самолеты](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6305305) by [Shae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shae/pseuds/Shae)



> Set during World War Two. 
> 
> They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:  
> Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.  
> At the going down of the sun and in the morning,  
> We will remember them.

The aeroplane flew over the red-brick house in Hanbury Street with the blue door and the silver knocker. The deep, rumbling noise penetrated through the walls. The unexpected sound caused one man to look up from his newspaper for the first time in an hour. The other man frowned and turned up the volume on the wireless.

“That was an Armstrong Whitworth Whitley bomber,” Mycroft murmured, returning to his newspaper.

“It was definitely a bomber,” Gregory replied, turning the wireless off and lying down on his back on the red carpet. “I’m not convinced it was an Armstrong Whitworth.”

“There will be more of them to follow,” Mycroft informed him. “Give it 50 seconds or so.”

Gregory frowned and stood up, straightening his tie and wandering over to the window. He pushed it open a little further, leaning out to look up at the cloudless blue sky.

He watched the seconds tick by on his watch. Almost on cue, the next plane flew above the house, higher than the first. Quieter.

“Armstrong Whitworth,” Gregory conceded as he studied it, pulling the window closed. “So I suppose I lost and have to make the tea.”

Mycroft offered him a triumphant smile. “If you would.”

Gregory leaned against the windowsill, continuing to peer out of the window and into the street. “It has been very loud this week,” he said. “Are they preparing for something?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“A yes then,” Gregory said with a half smile. “Good. I’m tired of waiting for something to happen. I’m convinced that if we get a good victory in the skies then things will fall into place.”

“Your optimism is misplaced,” Mycroft told him, turning the page in his paper.

Gregory rolled his eyes. “At least I have some optimism.”

Mycroft lowered his newspaper, looking up at his partner. “Turn the wireless on,” he said. “The BBC is repeating excerpts from Mr Churchill’s speech some time this afternoon.”

Gregory nodded and knelt back down beside the wireless. He fiddled with the dials, waiting for the static to die down and the clear voice of the British Broadcasting Corporation newsreader to begin speaking.

“He gave the following speech to Parliament this afternoon,” the newsreader said.

There were a few moments of silence before Mr Churchill’s voice came out loud and clear. “What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over,” he said. “The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire.

“If we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: This was their finest hour.”

“This was their finest hour?” Mycroft repeated, frowning. “He should know better than to make light of war. He made excursions onto No Man’s Land, the same as far too many men.”

Gregory glanced up at him. Mycroft rarely spoke of his time as an officer during the Great War. Indeed, he hardly referenced it at all. “How do you mean?” Gregory asked.

“There is no finest hour in war,” Mycroft replied, closing his newspaper. “He saw it all. He should know better than to say things like that.”

Gregory stood up and collected their cups and saucers. “It means we’ll commemorate them,” he said. “It means we will recognise their contribution.”

“If we win.”

“When we win,” Gregory corrected with a smile. He carried the cups and saucers through to the kitchen and began to boil the water.

He looked up at the ceiling as another aeroplane flew overhead. He walked back to the sitting room. “Handley Page Hampden bomber,” he murmured.

Mycroft flashed him a half smile. “Yes,” he said. “You are improving.”

“Perhaps next week you’ll be making all the teas.”

“That’s unlikely,” Mycroft said, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “But it’s nice to see your optimism extends to all areas of your life.”

Gregory laughed, walking behind Mycroft’s chair and touching his shoulders with light fingertips. He stroked his waistcoat before he began to rub Mycroft’s shoulders through the fabric, smiling as his partner visibly began to relax. “There’s little in my life to complain about,” Gregory said. “Those I care about are safe. You and I are together. I won’t be separated from you in this war, not like 20 years ago.”

“You only knew me eight months before I went to war,” Mycroft reminded him.

“I wrote you every week,” Gregory said.

“I never received them.”

“I never sent them.”

Mycroft turned in his seat to study him. They’d had this conversation many times, often in the darkness of their bedroom. Thousands of nights of waiting through a torturous war, waiting to find each other again, never once giving up that hope that they would.

When Gregory ducked to his head to kiss him, he did so with a tenderness built up over more than 20 years, a love and affection, a little bit of peaceful happiness in the midst of the rumbling noise as the planes soared overhead.

“The water’s boiled,” Mycroft murmured as the whistle from the kettle began.

“You always ruin the quiet moments,” Gregory said, but he smiled nonetheless.

“The water reaching boiling point ruined the moment,” Mycroft replied, returning to his newspaper. “Rather the tea than the aeroplanes.”

Gregory sighed, listening as more roared overhead.

 

* * *

 

Gregory always worried when Mycroft was at Whitehall. To him, anywhere near Parliament was the centre of certain bombing. He sat and waited every night for him, though Mycroft did not always return until the early hours.

Gregory worked as a policeman for the Metropolitan Police, a job he had held since he returned from the Great War. He had fought in North Africa. Mycroft had fought in Europe.

The number of policemen in the force had greatly diminished since this second war began. Gregory was responsible for training a number of volunteers, since he and Mycroft were both too old to be conscripted this time around.

He held an umbrella out for a woman and her child, gesturing for them to go down the stairs to the underground platform to shelter from the bombs.

He stood by the entrance, keeping a watchful eye out for black market traders. He listened to the hum of the planes. Heard the bombs. Shuddered at every bang.

“It’s a very rough night tonight,” Detective Inspector Dimmock said with a shrug. “It’s more planes than I’ve heard in one night before.”

“Yes, it’s got worse,” Gregory agreed. “Are your family safe?”

“We’ve built an Anderson shelter in the garden. They shall be in there tonight, but the children will be evacuated to the country next week. Do you have children?”

“I don’t, I’m afraid,” Gregory said, flinching as more planes flew overhead.

“Do you think we’ll win?” Dimmock asked.

“Yes. I do. Perhaps I’m too optimistic, I’m not sure.”

“Better to be too optimistic than too scared to do anything at all. This is a great country. We need to stand up and defend it.”

“Yes,” Gregory agreed. “Yes we do.”

They stayed in the entrance until the sun began to rise. Gregory rode his bicycle home, gave a silent thank you to no one in particular that his home was still standing and let himself inside. Mycroft was just getting dressed, putting on his tie and his pocketwatch.

They shared a soft kiss, their hands entwined at their sides.

“Terrible night,” Mycroft said as they parted. “The number of fatalities is believed to have increased considerably.”

Gregory sighed and kissed him again. “I could hear it,” he said, stepping away so he could start getting ready to go to bed. “What is it all?”

“The battle for Britain,” Mycroft murmured.

“And how is it?”

“I’m realistic, Gregory. And you will not like my answer.”

Gregory slid under the covers with a sigh, closing his eyes and listening to Mycroft walk down the stairs. He was already asleep when Mycroft closed the front door and left for work.

 

* * *

 

It was a rare treat when he and Mycroft spent more than a few hours together. Mycroft spent long hours at Whitehall and in secret buildings spread throughout the capital city.

Gregory knew very little of what his work entailed, but he knew Mycroft was helping with planning and tactics. He liked how involved in the war they both were in their own ways, especially since they couldn’t fight.

For Mycroft, now he was older, desk work was ideal. His back occasionally caused him trouble. It was a leftover remnant of his time at war. Gregory didn’t know the extent of the horrors he had seen. Oh, he saw horrors himself, out in North Africa, but he imagined little compared to the trenches.

Before Mycroft had left for the war, he used to paint pretty women in colourful dresses. When he returned, his art usually featured dark landscapes and horrible shadows in the distance. Still, Gregory hung the pictures in their home, much to Mycroft’s vocal disapproval.

Mycroft’s art was an insight into a mind that Gregory knew he’d never fully understand.

 

* * *

 

A Sunday in spring, they took the train out of London. There were some woods on top of a hill, out in the countryside. It was somewhere they first visited before the Great War, and it was full of wonderful memories forged throughout the past 20 years.

It was the first place they had kissed. Gregory remembered those moments as though it was yesterday.

Hidden from view underneath an ash tree, they had sat together discussing future plans. Mycroft wanted to go into politics. Gregory wanted to rise in the ranks of the police force. Not once did either of them mention women or children.

Somehow, Mycroft recognised Gregory’s sexuality, and he made the first move, though it was hesitant at first. It was Gregory’s first kiss with a man. He would never again kiss anyone else.

They sat down beneath that same ash tree on the fresh spring afternoon, Mycroft taking out a bottle of brandy from a brown paper bag.

Gregory began to laugh, taking the bottle from him and taking off the lid. “Don’t tell me where you got this from,” he said. “I don’t want to have to arrest you.”

Mycroft smiled, bemused. “Considering the crimes you have already committed with me, I doubt a little black market liquor will make much difference.”

Gregory laughed and took a swig, pulling a face as the liquid reached his throat. He handed the bottle to his partner. “You’re a bad influence, Mr Holmes,” he said.

Mycroft smiled, taking a sip from the drink. It was less refined than his usual choices. Before the war, he had always selected drinks which slid down the throat easily. Even Mycroft winced a little at the taste of this one. “Good gracious,” he muttered, peering at the label.

“At least with the war, no one pays attention to what we are doing with our lives,” Gregory said, pondering how this was one of the only places they had ever been able to touch each other outside their home. In the distance, he saw a young woman walking with a pram. Her husband was at war. Or already dead. But at least they had never been forced to hide their love away.

“We can’t begin to imagine a world where we are acceptable to society,” Mycroft said. “Because I can’t allow myself to think we will ever have more than this.”

“I believe it,” Gregory said, looking down at his feet. “I have to.”

“But why?”

“Because this is why we fight,” Gregory said, looking up at the skies as two aeroplanes roared overhead. The noise made him wince.

“What do you mean?” Mycroft asked.

“We’re fighting for freedom,” Gregory said.

Mycroft all but rolled his eyes. “Not for freedom of expression,” he replied. “We’re not fighting for people to love who they like. We’re not fighting for you and I to hold each other’s hand in the street or to admit why we live together.”

Gregory took the bottle back, taking one long swig before he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I don’t know why you do this,” he said. “You take all my hope and try to put it out.”

“I never hoped you and I would be able to share our relationship with the world," Mycroft replied. "I knew it was foolhardy to hope it, and a false dream. And you are ignorant to think it could ever be otherwise.”

Gregory laughed, retrieving his cigarettes and matches from his pocket. “I don’t care what you say,” he said. He sighed as the planes bellowed overhead. “What now?” he asked.

“The battle continues, and the bombs will still fall.”

“Mycroft. Are we winning?” Gregory turned to look at him, his eyes wide and hopeful.

Mycroft looked down at his own suit and stroked a hand down his tie as though flattening it, but he looked as pristine as ever. “No,” he said quietly.

“We’ll find a way,” Gregory said, his confidence still very genuine, even as the months had gone by. He reached out and touched Mycroft’s cheek.

Mycroft looked up at him with a sincere expression, his grey eyes searching and deducing.

“Stay at home tonight,” Gregory whispered. “I need you.”

Mycroft nodded and leaned forward to brush their lips together. He closed his eyes as more planes boomed over their heads. “One night of silence is all too much to ask,” he said with a sigh.

They sat and shared a cigarette, drinking until the sun began to set and they had to return to London.

 

* * *

 

It was almost a year from that day, and Gregory was stood in the underground station, keeping a silent vigil over those who had not been evacuated and sought refuge. A few babies cried. The planes roared overhead, sounding all too close. The bombs. The noise.

He left just as the sun began to rise and he breathed in deeply.

“Hanbury Street,” a police volunteer said to Dimmock as Gregory walked up the steps from the station. “Will you ring the alarm?”

Gregory marched over to them. “Hanbury Street?” he repeated.

“A bomb went-”

Gregory didn’t even bother to listen to the end of the statement as he started to run down the road. His fear carried him even while he was out of breath, his legs beginning to feel like lead.

He saw the smoke billowing above the houses, the noise of planes still oppressive above his head. He reached Hanbury Street, and stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the gap where his and Mycroft’s house once stood.

“No,” he whispered. Mycroft had just returned home as Gregory left for work and he knew, just knew... “No,” he repeated. “Please, Lord, no.”

“Gregory,” came a voice from behind him.

He turned, and caught his first sight of his partner, stepping out of the back of a car.

He swallowed, letting out a disbelieving breath. “Mycroft,” he whispered, beginning to walk towards the other man. There was nothing in the world he wanted to do more than embrace him and kiss him, and it killed him that he couldn’t.

Mycroft surreptitiously squeezed Gregory’s arm for not even a second, as they both turned to stare at their ruins of a home.

“Get in the car,” Mycroft whispered.

Gregory just nodded, feeling as though his heart was breaking in his chest. More than 14 years they had lived there, in that two-bedroom house with the blue door and silver knocker. Mycroft’s books and their war medals and Mycroft’s haunting paintings all destroyed…

He sat down in the back seat and dropped his head into his hands.

Mycroft sat beside him, close but too far away, a newspaper in his lap as they were driven to Whitehall. The building was quiet and still, and Mycroft led him to his office.

Gregory had only been there once before. Mycroft’s secretary, Anthea, looked up at them momentarily, seemingly surprised to see them both. “I’ll make a tray of drinks,” she said.

Mycroft nodded to her. “Thank you, my dear. Then please, go home.”

Mycroft opened the dark wooden door to his office and led them in before closing it.

“Mycroft,” Gregory whispered.

“I know,” he replied softly. Gregory reached for him but Mycroft shook his head. “When Anthea’s brought the tray.”

“It was our home,” Gregory said, longing to touch him.

“It was a house. There are other houses.”

“I thought you were…” Gregory trailed off. Dead.

“I’m not.”

“Luck.”

“Yes, luck,” Mycroft agreed.

Gregory sunk into a leather chair and Mycroft stood by his bookshelf. Anthea brought a tray of tea in, nodding to them both before leaving. Mycroft locked the door behind her.

Finally, Mycroft walked to Gregory, kneeling in front of his chair and clasping his hands in his own.

“Our home,” Gregory whispered again.

“You are my home,” Mycroft said, gazing into his eyes. “Where you are, is where I am. The bricks and the wallpaper means nothing.”

“Your paintings.”

“I’ll paint more,” Mycroft murmured.

Gregory leaned down and rested their foreheads together. It was the first time since the war started that he felt so unsure. That they were entering some horrible unknown. That the country’s defeat was possible. That defeat was maybe even likely.

“Don’t think like that,” Mycroft said, as though he could read his mind. “Not now. One of us has to still believe.”

“How can I?”

Mycroft stood up and kissed him firmly. “Because I am alive, and you are alive. And no German bomb is going to destroy us. Our house may be gone, but we’re not the first and we won’t be the last to live through that. Stay with me. And I will stay with you.”

“Will you lie to me?” Gregory asked.

“We’ll win the war,” Mycroft said. “Very soon. And the planes will stop.”

“Very soon still isn’t soon enough.”

“Oh, my love,” Mycroft whispered and kissed him again.

Sweet and loving kisses became hard and desperate as they sought each other’s skin. Though the carpet was rough, and left red marks and burns on pale skin, they hardly noticed. Nails dug into flesh left small crescents, and bruises were sucked into hidden locations on thighs and hips.

Their gasps filled the air as they fought for closeness and relief. The noise of the planes became only background and then faded as they reached a soaring crescendo together.

Gregory panted out his love for his partner, and it wasn’t until Mycroft kissed away his tears that he even knew they existed.

Spent, they lay together on the floor with a cigarette.

 

* * *

 

They found a new house, though it was smaller than their last. Mycroft’s art supplies were made from every day household objects and his work became even more surrealist and dark. Gregory still hung them, bringing some sort of life to their new home.

Mycroft worked longer hours still.

Their games guessing the types of planes seemed so far away now. Sometimes Gregory felt as though he could hardly breathe, weighed down by fear and concern.

When he lay naked with Mycroft in their new bed, listening to the hums of the planes above their house, he closed his eyes and imagined they were in a train carriage, travelling so some unknown, tranquil destination.

 

* * *

 

“The war is ending,” Mycroft said out of the blue over a dinner.

Gregory narrowed his eyes. “Don’t fill with me with false hope,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve got the stomach for it now.”

 

* * *

 

Precisely two weeks later, and the Union Flags were out and there was dancing in the streets.

Mycroft and Gregory took a train out to that hill in the countryside to celebrate in their favourite place in the world, beneath the ash tree where they had first kissed.

Mycroft had brought a bottle of brandy and they swigged it from the bottle. He recounted the tales of battles and heroics. Gregory listened and watched the trees in the breeze.

“You’re not celebrating,” Mycroft said with a frown.

Gregory shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Why on earth not? You’ve waited for this day for years.”

“We lost too many," Gregory said. "Lost too much. Nothing left to celebrate. All those men who died. They didn’t celebrate the end, did they? Feels wrong to celebrate it now. The world still moves on and what changes?”

“Nothing changes,” Mycroft conceded, his voice quiet. “We are just as free as we were last year. 10 years ago. But across Europe, there are peoples knowing freedom for the first time. Tasting air and lands which once belonged to aggressors and now belongs to them. The opening of the gates. The spreading of ideals and hope. Does that not appeal to you?”

Gregory pondered those words for a few moments, biting the inside of his cheek. “It appeals,” he conceded. “Since when did you get optimistic about it?”

Mycroft smiled at him. “We survived. We lost our house which was rather a blow. But we survived. Somehow, through these incredible circumstances, you’re still at my side. I’m not sure where my good fortune came from.”

Gregory paused for a moment and tilted his head. He began to smile. “You know what I just noticed.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Mycroft glanced quizzically at him. “I don’t follow.”

Gregory’s smile only grew. “It’s quiet, Mycroft. I can’t hear the planes.”

Mycroft looked up at the blue sky. “No,” he whispered. “No, nor can I.”

And in the stillness and silence of the countryside, hidden from view beneath the tree, they kissed.


End file.
